Judgment

A judge has hit BlueScope Steel with a $57.5 million penalty for engaging in attempted cartel conduct and ordered a former executive to personally pay a $575,000 penalty.

A judge has refused infant formula company Care A2’s bid to block US business partner Gensco from filing a lawsuit in Florida that overlaps with a $200 million suit filed in Australian court over a deal to sell formula in the US amid a supply shortage.

A judge has blessed a $132.7 million settlement and a $33 million common fund order in a class action over toxic firefighting foam, saying he was “not vexed” by whether he had power to grant the funder’s payout despite the Full Court having reserved on the contentious issue. 

A judge who found that Ben Roberts-Smith committed war crimes has recused himself from deciding whether the Office of the Special Investigator can access evidence in the former SAS corporal’s defamation case for its own investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan.

The University of Sydney has lost a bid to amend its claims against a consultant in litigation over allegedly defective building work carried out on its Charles Perkins Centre in Camperdown.

The judge hearing a lawsuit by senator Linda Reynolds against the partner of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins over allegedly defamatory social media posts has urged the parties to resolve the matter outside of court, citing the “psychological strain” and “emotional stress” of litigation.

A judge has approved a $41.45 million settlement in a pelvic mesh class action against manufacturers Covidien and TFS but has put off deciding on the costs of the firm that ran the case, saying it is “next to useless” when law firms appoint their own costs consultants.

The maker of Mother energy drinks has won an appeal of an IP Australia decision, succeeding in its bid to prevent a Victoria-based company from registering Kangaroo Mother as a trade mark for beverages.

An environment group that alleges former treasurer Josh Frydenberg rejected advice from the climate change office on a high-rise apartment development on protected wetlands near Brisbane has won access to correspondence about the project.

Pitcher Partners has lost its appeal of a decision that refused to stay a lawsuit over the accounting firm’s alleged involvement in race car driver Max Twigg’s misappropriation of $127 million from his family.